"You must forget and forgive but it's going to take a long time for me to get over what he has done to me."

"He says he wasn't racist. He wouldn't be saying words like that if he wasn't racist," Carol added.

The furore has dragged in the airline whose staff were accused of not dealing seriously enough with the incident. Many people had subsequently said Mesher should have been moved or even ejected from the plane - but it was Delise that changed seats.

The Gayles said they did not accept the passenger’s apology.

In a statement, Ryanair said it's staff did not realise the seriousness of the abuse until after the plane had landed at London's Stansted airport.

Cabin crew were aware of an argument between two passengers during boarding "but were not aware of, as they were not present when, racists comments were made by the male passenger towards the female passenger.

"As far as cabin crew were concerned, that was the end of the matter, and since there was no threat to aircraft safety the issue of offloading one passenger did not arise," Ryanair said.

The firm said it then reported the video to Essex police on Sunday 21 October.

The airline said Delise chose to move to a seat next to her daughter in another part of the aircraft.

"These prompt actions disprove the false claims that Ryanair did not respond 'quickly' or 'appropriately' to this video," it said.

As the fracas happened in Barcelona, UK police have sent the video to the Spanish authorities.